People use all sorts of computer, television, and telecommunication equipment in addition to other home and office lighting and electrical devices. People are also carrying around more portable electrical devices such as cellular telephones, Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs), laptop computers, personal music and/or video players, wireless Universal Serial Bus (USB) devices, etc. This electrical equipment either needs to be constantly plugged into a power supply or intermittently plugged into a power supply to recharge an internal battery.
Problems exist providing electrical outlets for powering all of these different electrical devices. Often the power cords for portable devices include a power transformer that is enclosed along with the electrical plug. These transformers take up a large amount of space and often prevent other power cords from being plugged into adjacent electrical outlets.
Another problem relates to the extension cords that provide additional electrical plug-ins. Often the extension cords sit loosely on the floor or on a table. It is difficult to plug devices into these freely sitting extension cords. Existing extension cords can also take up a substantial amount of space on or underneath a table or desk, and generally detract from the aesthetics of a room. In other words, it is generally undesirable to see tangled extension cords extending over or underneath furniture.
The present invention addresses this and other problems associated with the prior art.